The Scottish Labour Party is calling for trains and buses to offer free Wi-Fi, following the tradition of parties not in power of calling for impractical, but populist, measures.
The idea is to get people out of cars by improving public transport, and skips over the fact that public transport in Scotland is run by private …

Me n da Lozells yoof

Don't be silly

No one uses their laptop/netbook/iPhone on the bus if they don't want it stolen, or to be stabbed while defending it.

Personally though I'd rather be stabbed than get on a bus in the first place. I get the train in to work and it's about a million more times convenient and comfortable. And that's saying something.

A bus is just a piece of sheet metal on wheels with a large Diesel engine at the back. It's usually packed out with children all of whom want you dead and you can't sit down without getting chewing gum or McFlurry all over your ass.

I've been boycotting busses for years and my life couldn't be better for it.

Laptops are everywhere. do we really need them on busses and trains too?

Geez... I have to work with computers all day... I don't want to see them on my way to work, it's bad enough that one can't find a cafe anymore with more people in it than laptops, but now busses and trains too. Can't wait till children on the buss start throwing up on laptops or throughing paper aeroplanes through tft's... then will see how good an idea it is.

And before working on extra features for trains and busses, maybe the rolling stock should be upgraded first. Trains here in germany are excellent and offer tv and electrical plugs for free even in second class... and german second class makes the english first class look like 5th class. In england the difference between 1st class and second is that a paper towel is placed on the head rest in first class.

i used to get busses to work every day

And i can categorically state, that free wi-fi would not have improved the experience in the slightest.

having it turn up roughly around the time it was supposed to every day, having the driver not get lost every few days and miss a few unimportant stops (that i was stood waiting at), not having a 15 minute car journey take an hour , and not having to wait half an hour to an hour between them on top of that would have improved the experience no end though.

Oh and not having the prices arbitrarily rise by silly amounts every few months would have been a bonus too.

Location, Location, Location

When are any politicians, North or South of the border, going to realise that there is a difference between the cities and the fields?

There is bugger all 3G coverage outside of Glasgow and Edinburgh, so this is going to be a bit tricky for rural routes, and no bloody point on city busses where most people are only on board for ten to twenty minutes at a time.

Same thing this morning, the Tories were talking about parents having more choice of what school their kids should go to - outside of the major cities, there IS no choice.

What's the matter with you all?

I recently spent a pleasant few weeks around the Moray Firth and my Vodafone mobile broadband dongle was fantastic...well OK it was fantatstic if you walked a mile and climbed up a local hill, finally making do with about 4-5kbps download speed, but only on dry day mind!

No problem, let's spend millions of tax payer's cash on something that quite frankly only a handful of tech savvy, Apple fanbois will use, just to prove it works! Come on, whenever someone has a laptop out in public, it's usually got a fruit logo on the top!

Public transport is SHITE

Look, last time I used public transport I went to Oxford to see a comedy show, I thought me and the wife could make a day of it so we left early (4 hours before we needed to be in the venue, train journey was advertised at about an hour or so) on a Saturday afternoon, got the bus just across the road from our house (how convenient).

Or at least tried to, it turns out that that particular bus at that particular time doesn't go into town (I live in Basingstoke, not some little vilage) I asked the driver where / when we could get the next bus to town but he didnt know (or maybe didnt understand my question). Walked to the other end of the street where we know another bus service runs and the next bus wasn't for an hour which meant we would have missed our planned train service.

I got the car and drove to the train station. Parked in the (frankly astronomically priced car park where I couldnt even leave the car overnight so no drinking for me) and wandered down to the station only to find that the train we had booked for had been cancelled due to lack of staff!

The next train from Basingstoke to Oxford was in an hour and meant we would have missed the start of the show (which, as it turns out, we may have had to leave early to get the last train back). Can you guess what happened next? that's right, off to the car (where I had just paid £8.00 for 10 minutes parking) and drive to oxford.

Now at this point public transport did work because I used the park and ride which was excellent, the drivers were knowledgeable and helpful so Kudos to Oxford.

This weekend me and the wife are off into London on Sunday to a TV show recording, Just checked and found it will cost us £45 on the train and there are many works going on on the tube lines so guess how we are getting there? thats right, Me, the wife (and Jane from Tom Tom) are going to drive into London (probably faster than the 1 hour 5 minutes journey time and not having to stop twice to change cars)

WiFi, Pah, I'd settle for something that gets me there faster, cheaper and more efficiently than my car. Public transport, it's a nice idea if it wasnt just so fucked up!